Are The Self Destructive Policies of Delhi and North Indian States Denying Good Healthcare To Their Citizens ?

Are The Self Destructive Policies of Delhi and North Indian States Denying Good Healthcare To Their Citizens ?

R.K.Upadhyay

Repeated defeats at Panipat and ransacking of Delhi by Nadirshah , Abdali , Englishmen (1857) adequately prove that Rulers of North India and of Delhi never learn from History. What is worse that this habit of not learning from history continues even after independence . There was a time till a few years back when special trains used to be run from north India on the day of Karnataka JEE exam . Progressive states like Mahrashtra , Tamilnadu and Karnatak permitted private engineering and medical colleges thus giving those states residents a clear edge in employment . It took decades before north Indian states started setting up private engineering colleges .

But refusing to learn from history , now north India states ( Delhi and BIMARU ) are repeating the same mistake of discouraging private investment in hospitals and heath care thus denying their residents benefits of good heath care .

DDA , the sole land holding authority in Delhi ,has made a policy that private hospitals will be allotted land at auction rates . Therefore even an old hospital , giving free statutory treatment to poor as per law , wanting to add more beds or specialities has to pay Rs 100 crore for just one acre of land ! Who can pay that type of price for land for a hospital ?

But any number of appeals to DDAs Babus do not get any response because it is safe to give land at auction rate ! Who wants to risk his career and now even jail by allotting land for expansion at institutional rates as was done earlier ? Even electricity charges are Rs1100 /bed in Delhi compared to Rs 600/ bed in Bangalore because hospitals are not given electricity at industry rates in Delhi . This raises the cost of treatment in Delhi much to the advantage of Bangalore .

In a repeat of TATA Nano story at Singur , PM Modi inaugurated a 300 bed hospital in Ahemdabad , made by Narayan Hrudyalay chain at a cost of just 110 crore rupees .Devi Shetty , owner of Narayan Hrudyalay chain is planning to invest Rs 5000 crores in setting up 100 low cost speciality centers and add 30000 beds in hospitals . The company hopes to make each hospital at a cost of 25 – 30 crore rupees . In contrast an existing hospital in East Delhi giving 20 % treatment to poor is not being allowed to expand by allotting an adjascent vacant two acre land by which it can add two hundred beds and open several new specialities . It must pay Rs 100 crore for a small piece of land !

Will Devi Shetty ever invest in Delhi at these terms ?

The costly land policy is depriving not only the Delhi residents but all north Indian states because they are woefully short of health infrastructure and often use Delhi hospitals for treatment .

The South and West Indian states are far ahead of Central and north India . Southern India has one hospital bed for 1560 population compared to national average of 2339 . Central India has this for a population of 4471 people. 22/1000 North Indians avail of hospital benefits compared to 39 /1000 in south India and 36/1000 in western India .

It has been estimated that by 2025 India needs an investment of $ 600 billion in capital equipment and an expenditure of $ 3 trillion in raising heath care standard to WHO standards . Currently India has around one hospital bed per thousand people compared to 2.9 in USA and 3.8 in China. Availability of doctors is similar with India lagging far behind yet we donot open new medical colleges or at least give land at concessional rates to new medical colleges .

DDAs and north India’s dead scared and play safe leaders and babus are taking their states backward by not giving priority to health care in public policies .

As I said in the beginning , north refuses to learn any lesson from its defeats at Panipat and repeated ransackings of Delhi . At this rate south will have far healthier people because DDA’s babus are busy protecting their post retirement pensions and Provident Fund by playing safe in land policies for hospitals.